


to the bone

by cabret



Category: SKAM (Norway), SKAM (TV)
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, feelings but also smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-07
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-10-15 21:57:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10558342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cabret/pseuds/cabret
Summary: It’s going to be a grey day, Even thinks. It’ll be one of those. All ash in the wake and none of the fire from before.





	1. no words, other ways

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a two-track playlist:  
> [left speaker blown](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQuhgVs5PlQ), liars  
> [the way it was](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDu8ZxWdjeo), silq

On Sunday, his alarm goes off at 7.00.

From the bed, Even throws his left hand out and grasps through the darkness, blindly, until he finds where he left his phone last night: on Isak’s yellow nightstand, pushed almost to its edge. He taps his fingers on the screen at random until the tinny notes are silenced, his eyes still closed.

It happened yesterday, too. He knows he should turn off the repeat so it doesn’t again, but he throws his arm over his face instead. There isn’t any light yet from outside to block; he just likes the weight of his own body as it presses against his eyes.

He feels Isak turn to his side a little next to him, facing away, tugging the blanket closer to his chin. The bedroom air slowly moves into the space under the blanket and between their bodies, cold and tickling. Normally, Even would shift now and press his body against Isak’s, stomach to spine, let his hand fall across Isak’s waist and into the warmth between his skin and the bed sheets -- and he wants to, he would, but he can’t.

Instead, he drags his arm down from face to chest, feels the dull pulse of his own heart through its layers. Closes his eyes as he feels the lead start to leak through his body.

It’s going to be a grey day, Even thinks. It’ll be one of those. All ash in the wake and none of the fire from before.

-

Monday is heavy, and Even’s head feels as if it’s been drenched in static – a familiar one. He registers everything only after it happens: hears the blankets rustle and then doesn’t, feels Isak’s lips against his bare shoulder and then doesn’t, thinks of trying to get out of the bed, to clean himself or to at least open the curtains, but doesn’t.

So he spends most of the day underwater, asleep.

When Isak gets back he turns on the light and unsuccessfully tries to make Even get out of the bed. He settles for making him sit upright, then asks him if he wants any of Eskild’s leftover pizza. Even feels his stomach growl but doesn’t say anything. Isak sits next to him, balancing on the edge, and pulls the top of Even’s (Isak’s) hoodie over his head. Even leans into his touch, closes his eyes.

“I’ll let you doodle on me while I do my homework. I can only start after I eat something, though,” Isak says 

Even smiles a little but doesn’t look at him yet. “Can we eat in your room?" 

They spend the evening still on the bed, but awake: Even draws out tiny sea creatures on Isak’s thigh as Isak taps away on his laptop.

“What is that?” Isak asks after a while, squinting at the lines on his leg. “Is that a jellyfish?”

“It’s a colossal squid,” Even answers as he fills the spaces between them, gently. The drawing is smaller than his thumb. “They live two kilometers under the sea where it’s really dark and cold and there isn’t a lot of food. But they’re still so much bigger than normal squids. It’s called abyssal gigantism, I think. And no one really knows why.”

Isak looks at him, rubs at the ink, then goes back to his essay. “Why do _you_ think they are?”

Even shrugs. “They just are, I guess.” 

- 

He falls asleep fine enough, but it’s in his dreams where the anxieties start.

Everything seems to move through odd shadows and overblown vulgarity, like the off-scenes out of a Fellini film. He’s in Bakka again and the hallways are soaked red; there’s the sick sound of laughter every other corner, and in each locker he can feel there is something hiding in wait, curled and grotesque.  

A phone on the wall rings as he runs down the main hallway, and this – the call about to come, the awful stillness in the air – this, he knows, has some distant root in reality. He stops in front of the phone in its ugly beige cradle, lifts the receiver to his ear, hesitantly, despite already knowing what’ll be waiting at the end. A muffled voice, at first, and then he hears his mother crying on the other end of the line, her pain made tinny and thin through the connecting air.

He can feel a piece of glass in his right palm and he flexes it as he keeps listening to her cry, feels the movement of the cut shard as it slips up and up and up the inside of his arm. When he looks at his hand, his knuckles are raw and growing clear jagged splinters out from under his skin.

But where’s the blood, he wonders. I remember there being more blood. It felt cold against the air.

He’s late for physics now, his mother tells him when she’s finished her sobs, and so he drops the receiver and turns the corner, walks into his Physics class and knows, horribly, that everyone is staring at him even before opens the door. Sprawled across the whiteboard is an equation for a pendulum theory whose creator’s name tugs somewhere, sharply, uselessly, at the back of his head, but – all he can focus on is the tiny Newton’s cradle that sits, unmoving, on a massive desk in front of the classroom. He stares at it, really stares at it, and then tumbles back into the doorway, falling, when he sees the end spheres suddenly arc in midair at the same time, staring back at him with their dead metal gaze.

Sonja’s behind him, then, her hot breath in his ear, her hair tickling his jaw. She licks at nape of his neck, wraps her arms under his and around his chest, tucks her bare knee up between his thighs. He swallows.

“So now, when you really do drown down there – deep at the bottom of that wicked little brain of yours – I think I might really miss you this time,” she says, and then pushes him down into the carpet floor.

He wakes up with a jolt and feels a slight wetness around his eyes, a prick of shame unfolding slow and hot in his stomach. Already the dream is fading out from his mind and the more he tries to grasp at its trails in a belated attempt to analyse and untangle, the filmier it becomes.

Even gives up, frustrated, and tries to anchor himself to the present, instead: where (Isak’s room, kollektivet), when (he grapples for his phone; a dim light, 2.07), who (Isak, next to him: asleep, breathing, fucking beautiful), what (he doesn’t want to think about it), how (he’s drifting, now).

He sighs and moves closer to Isak, tugging the comforter up over his shoulder, and lets the darkness of the room press against them both, heavily, to sleep.  

-

It gets a little better, briefly: He kisses Isak’s bare shoulder Wednesday morning, eats the bagel pushed into his hand, goes to his first two periods of the day.

And then it doesn’t. Even decides on an impulse (that feels less like spontaneity and more like desperation) to skip his remaining periods, and spends the rest of the morning in the candy aisle at 7-11. The packages gleam sharp under the fluorescent lights, yellow and glaring, and he wants to close his eyes against the noise of the plastic. It’s raining outside, a little. It makes him think of lifejackets.

He’s been standing in the aisle for – for how long, he doesn’t remember, not really wanting anything, either, just staring at the shelves -- when he feels his phone buzz in his pocket, and pulls it out. A text from Isak. He’s already texted Even a few times, actually, each message slightly more urgent than the one before. Even can imagine the sighs that escape him with each lack of response after hitting ‘send’, the soft way his brow furrows when he’s worried.

_Hey did you leave?_

_Jonas wants to give you your book back_

_Where did you go_

_Are you ok at least???_

_If you don’t feel good go to my place Noora_ _can let you in. I’ll tell her not to bother you_

 _Can you answer please_

A pop song is playing through the loudspeakers of the store – something electronic, from a commercial – but it sounds oddly distant; strained. He can’t make out any of the lyrics over the sound of the freezers running in the far back, their low hum somehow turned thick and roaring in his ears. Even stares at the cursor under his thumb as it blinks.  

He thinks: I could tell him. I could tell him that it’s all back inside me and it makes me want to die, to spill out, spill over, and I could tell him and he would come. I want him to know. Is that selfish?

He writes: _Hey yeah I’m going to go walk around for a bit I think_

A grey bubble – typing – and Even thinks, with a shameful pang: Come after me.

_Where? I can meet you after_

He takes a breath and starts typing: _I’m going to_

Even pauses.

Where. Or what. He doesn’t know. He just knows he wants Isak to find him; wants to hold Isak and his warm body close to his own somewhere quiet and secluded; wants to touch Isak, cheek to cheek, breathing, so as to quiet the roar in his head. And he knows how badly Isak wants to help him get to that temporary calmness, that still point in the sea, but – Even is scared.

Not of Isak or what he might do, or say, or think, but. Of himself, mostly. How naked and raw he’ll be stripped down to around the person he loves, and – no matter how many times it happens – how he’ll never get used to the feeling.  

Even sticks his phone into his right jacket pocket, grabs a pack of black licorice and shoves it in the left, and walks out the store without paying. In his pocket he fingers the plastic corners of the candy bag, sharp and cold and creasing under his palm.

_Even?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta'd, not edited. I also haven't written anything other than poetry in so long that it took me a while to remember what full sentences were + I have such awful doubts about my understanding of characters I love that I always second-guess how I write about them and then I give up halfway through, so. That might happen.


	2. the weight it loves me

 

_who saw your war winds won_

_and stayed soundly_

* * *

 

Isak finds him on a bench at Eidsvolls plass.

Even sees him approach out of the corner of his eye as he sits with one foot on the bench and tosses ripped pieces of licorice at the ground, waiting for the occasional lone bird to investigate the offerings. He doesn’t look at Isak, but moves his leg to make room for him. Isak puts down his bag and sits just close enough for their knees to touch.

They stay like that for a while, quietly observing the uneventful scene in front of them. Even fiddles with the licorice strands in his hands and tosses out a piece every few minutes; watches as they shine slick and black on the ground and then dull again whenever a cloud moves overhead. After a while, Isak starts bumping his knee, gently, against Even’s.

“There aren’t many birds here in March,” Isak says. “Are you even supposed to feed them this stuff?” In response, Even offers him the open bag. Isak gives him a look, but takes a piece. Looks Even in the eye as he eats it, instead. Even smiles a little.

He had told Isak where he was, eventually, after reminding himself that it was unfair to keep him closed off and in the dark when he had known just how much Isak would worry.

 _Don’t come until you’re done though, I’m fine_ he’d texted him, and then waited as the little grey bubbles appeared and disappeared again and again until

 _Ok. I love you_.

He had stared at the message for a while and rubbed his thumb over the screen to wipe away the drizzle that fell on it, until something hard and hot tugged in his chest and he finally looked away.

It wasn’t the first time this had happened with Isak – definitely not the first time it had ever happened to _him_ – but still it had felt secretive, and shameful, as it always did and in the same way. And that phrase: _happened to him_. That was how he experienced things when stuck in the slow drip of a low period, as if a good half of his mind had detached from inside him and wandered off to watch his own actions from a distance. He vaguely remembers something about reflexive verbs in Spanish: _if the subject in a sentence performs an action on itself, then the verb is considered to be reflexive_ ; and thinks, now – I could be the space between the action and the self. Alone in that odd, empty expanse.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Isak asks, then, nudging Even’s side slightly with his elbow. Even contemplates for a moment.

“Not really,” he says, voice low. He rubs his hand down his face; can smell the licorice on it. “I- I just. Maybe later.”

He turns a little towards Isak but can’t bring himself to match his gaze, so he settles on looking nearer to his chin instead. Traces its pale line down to the slope of his neck and the start of the white t-shirt under his hoodie. Even knows how soft it is, how it feels under his touch; how warm Isak’s skin is underneath. He knows so much about Isak now, and Isak, him. Little things and big things and useless things that he’d never even concretely known about himself: how he licks his lips before he leans into a kiss, how he likes hearing Isak say his name when they fuck; how sometimes his whole body feels like a dirty ache and he can’t bear to let Isak touch him; how he can barely talk when he’s down because of the sheer amount of effort it takes to drag his mind away from itself; how he actually _hates_ black licorice, but it makes the moment feel a little bit more like a movie scene; how, when he finally tells Isak everything it still won’t be everything, and he still won’t be able to clean out his shame underneath, all of it growing in him in knots, through every year like weeds. He knows Isak knows all this, and yet. Isak is still here, sitting next to him on a bench on a shitty March afternoon.

“Yeah,” Isak says, nodding slightly. He looks away at the birds gathering by them in the day’s leftover puddles and Even looks at him and wants to bury his face into the crook of Isak’s neck, to hide in the warmth there for a while. “Yeah. Okay.”

Even lets out a quiet breath. “I will, though. I promise. I’ll try. But, I dunno – for now, do you- will you just tell me about your day?”

“Fuck,” Isak says, smiling a little. “Fuck, it was actually so boring. But at least I got your Nesbø book back for you.” He leans into Even’s side and watches the birds, looks over at him occasionally as he talks. Even leans back, letting Isak’s head rest slightly on his shoulder. He can tell Isak’s happy talking to him, happy to know he’s okay for now – or, at least more okay than he was a few hours ago – but he also knows Isak’s checking to see if he’s doing the right thing, telling the right story, keeping his voice light to try and hide how anxious he was before.

It feels a bit nice, in a way. How it wasn’t strained – just genuine. An attempt to get things back to _okay_ , or to at least offer a careful branch to it.

They’re quiet for a while after, watching the grey of the sky as it slides away and reveals layers of the burnt late-day orange underneath.

“Want to go back to my place?” Isak says eventually. He bounces his knee against Even’s again. “We can pass Illegal Burger. I want fries.”

Even nods after a moment and presses his leg into Isak’s, turns his face to nose at his hair.

“Let’s eat then,” Isak grunts as he stands up. He stretches, and the bottom of his shirt rides up a little. Even looks up at him, Isak’s face in chiaroscuro from the low sun behind. Isak moves to stand between his legs and says, softly, “It’ll be okay.”

Isak’s assurance is different from Sonja’s, Even thinks as Isak steps back, letting Even stand and pick up all the uneaten twists. He remembers Sonja being kind but firm and confident: whenever she said _It will be okay_ he knew what implicitly followed: _because I will make it okay_. Isak, though – something about Isak’s uncertainty was comforting, weightless in a way. When Isak said _It will be okay_ , Even also felt the unspoken other half: _maybe we can make it okay. I hope we can make it okay_.

He thinks of the giveness of Isak’s care, its elasticity and clemency – which was what Even loved, really loved, but was also just so, so afraid of. Terrified that he could – and would – test that part of their intimacy again and again and again until, finally, it broke. 

He finds the nearest bin and tosses out the remaining pieces of licorice, now cold. Keeps his quiet fear tucked inside him and follows his boyfriend home in the late-afternoon light, eventually drawing Isak’s hand toward him and into his jacket pocket to hold.

-

Friday is better. 

Even takes notes in his maths class and keeps his margin doodling to a minimum, waits for Isak to walk out from his physics exam before buying them both beer to bring home. They watch Upstream Color on Isak’s laptop, one of Even’s favourite films that he didn’t quite understand but still loved, how it clung subtly to the insides of his brain and stayed.

“I hope I dream like that tonight,” Isak says, when they finish, after Even makes them watch through the credits. Isak closes his laptop and leans into him. “Or maybe you will and maybe I’ll feel it. Those colors were cool.”

Isak gets up to close the door and sits back again, lets Even run his fingers under the hem of Isak’s t-shirt, and then crawls on top of his hips. Since the morning Even had started to feel slightly… slightly _more_ , the day having already grown to be less heavy than the black week before. At least he could get could hard again, something that was frustrating and difficult in the times he felt sick and sodden. Having Isak straddling him didn’t hurt, either.

And now, on Friday night, both of them naked and hot in Isak’s bed, Isak desperate and ready and Even about to push into him, he thinks: How I fucking love him. How I can let him see me, red and wet and bloody, and he’ll still let me hold him in my hands.

Even leans down to kiss him on his mouth, his cheeks, his eyelids, his temples, then pulls back to just looks at Isak, his beautiful boy laid wanting underneath him. He thumbs Isak’s bottom lip, traces his hand down his chest to the inside of his thighs; takes his other hand and pushes them apart further, tries to still their minute trembles.

“Fuck, Even.” Isak’s pupils are blown, his chest heaving.

He loves this. 

“What was that?” Even asks, looking Isak in the eyes as he strokes himself. “What do you want?”

“Please, I want – I want you inside me." 

He loves him.

In response, Even wraps one hand around Isak’s chin, winds the other into his hair, and presses inside as he does, slowly. Isak looks him deep in the eye and moans, a thick sound dragged out from belly to throat, his chin tilting up, lips falling apart as Even finally bottoms out. God. Even loves his mouth the most in this moment: his bitten lips, the tiny gaps in his teeth, the small, quiet gasps he’s making. He moves his fingers from Isak’s chin into his mouth, pushes them across his tongue and to the back of his throat until Isak gags a little, wet and choked. Even smiles, then, takes his fingers out and rubs them down Isak’s cheek, then pulls back and thrusts in again, slowly, cupping both hands around his boyfriend’s face.

“Even,” Isak whispers. Even rubs his thumb against Isak’s bottom lip. Swollen and soft. “Even, please.”

He gives him what he wants: fucks him harder until Isak is gasping into his ear, his breaths coming faster and more ragged. Even’s brain is soaked through with the image of Isak’s eyes, hazel and overblown, and how tight he feels, how he clenches around Even’s cock, hot and wanting, whimpering slightly when Even angles just right inside. Isak moves then to try to touch himself, his cock hard and ignored and leaking, but Even takes both his wrists and pins them above his head, revels in the choked moan that Isak lets out in frustration.

“You’re my baby, you know that right?” Even whispers into his ear. The roughness in his own voice surprises him, and he knows Isak hears it too because he moans again, strained and clearly desperate as Even grinds down, pressing in as deep as he can. He feels Isak jerk and try to pull away from the intensity, but Even lifts his hands from his wrists and pulls him closer by the shoulders. “My baby.”

Something inside him unspools further into want when he sees Isak nearly lose it at his words, his head thrown back, his palm to his mouth. But - Even sees what’s wrong and pulls Isak’s hand away, offers him his left shoulder instead.

“Here. Bite down” he says, and Isak closes his eyes and does so. It makes Even’s blood even hotter; he drives his hips in deeper and pushes the inside of Isak’s thighs apart as he does, making him whine and throw both his arms around Even’s neck, his fingers digging into the blades of Even’s back.

“Are you okay?” he asks, pulling back for a brief moment. He stills and wipes a curl of Isak’s damp hair off his forehead, lets him catch his breath. Isak closes his eyes for a second, and when he opens them again Even feels his legs tighten around his waist, tugging him closer.

“Yeah, just – come on, Even, keep going, please, just- ”

The desperation in his voice makes him oblige.

He knows Isak is close. Even fucks into him faster, harder, until Isak tenses, wraps his arms around him as he cries out, and holds him tight through each swell of his orgasm as Isak clenches rhythmically around him, breathless and hot and moaning.

Even kisses the sounds from his mouth and keeps moving, spurred on by Isak’s tightness, his hands around his face, his quiet, fucked-out voice as he whispers, “Come on, Evi. Come inside me. I love you. Come on,” and Even does, stilling deep inside Isak as he feels every vein in his body fill and rush with a thick euphoria, Isak’s hands in his hair and his voice near in his ear. Eventually, Even catches his breath and notices a wetness around Isak’s eyes that wasn’t there before, and licks at one trail, gently, as it slips down his temple.

“Gross,” Isak murmurs, swatting his face away, but Even can hear him smile, reluctantly. “Don’t be gross. Go get some water.”

He doesn’t. He wants to stay here, draped over Isak and inside him still, both of them hot and sated and happy. He pulls out and hears Isak’s exhale stutter at the loss. Even feels it too as he settles back on his knees, looking at his boyfriend, quiet and pliant and breathing slowly on the bed, and wants to be inside him again, to see how ruined he can make him. He pushes down the thought to somewhere in the back of his mind and settles for pressing his thumb inside, gently, feeling the slickness as it slips out, until Isak moans a little again and kicks him lightly in the arm.

“Can you grab the paper? I’m- I can’t really–”

Even smiles at Isak’s blush, at his thoroughly fucked-out voice, and leans down to kiss him on the nose, before rolling over to grab the roll of toilet paper on the nightstand and cleans them both up.

After, Even pulls him closer and buries his face in Isak’s hair, his scalp slightly damp with sweat. It’s raining a little again; he can hear it against the window, its sound threading through Isak’s slow breaths as each drop falls. Even rubs his nose into Isak’s crown, feels him nuzzle back into his neck, closes his eyes.

They fit together so perfectly, Even thinks. How holy their bodies must look from above.

 

* * *

_when alone i feel no pain_

_the way you hold me brings me back_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it’s past midnight and it’s bit (a lot) of a mess and unedited, really, but 
> 
> at least I tried
> 
> [inner lover](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxId6IKgQLE), land of talk  
> [your name](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuHBott-pw4), bernache  
> [upstream color](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5U9KmAlrEXU)
> 
> and thank you for reading ♥


	3. a hundred times yourself

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i'm sorry there was a two-month gap between this chapter and the previous one. 
> 
> also, please note that this fic runs slightly parallel to canon in terms of small details (mostly those about Even). think of it like an asymptote.

Even dreams about Bakka again, but when he picks up the phone it’s Isak on the other end of the line.

“Hey Even,” Isak says. There’s no static to buffer this time, and Even thinks he can hear each of Isak’s vocal chords and the slide of his Adam’s apple under his skin when he swallows. Isak’s not crying, though, not like Even’s mom was. His voice is clear and flat. It slices into Even’s ear.

“Hey Even,” Isak says, again. “Why is there blood in here?”

“Where?” he asks, disoriented, trying to locate himself. His legs are too heavy and when he looks down to try and move them, the floor against the black of his sneakers is blinding. His feet feel very distant. “Isak, where are you? What blood? Why are you calling m—“

He’s in the bathroom with him before he can finish his sentence. The fluorescence of the lights burns a hard, sick purple over the tiled walls and in the corner is Isak, standing at the sink farthest from the door with his back to Even, turning the faucet on and off. Something’s off about the water; each drops clinks into the basin like glass, dark and murky in colour, and Even feels the first claws of fear start tapping inside him.

“Isak,” he forces out. “Why are you here?”

“Look at this, Even,” Isak says, ignoring him. He’s staring into the sink intently, and Even tries to step closer, tries to touch his shoulder, to turn him around, make _Isak_ look at him - but he’s rooted to the spot.

With the tap still running, Isak lowers his hand into the sink and picks something up. A piece of the water. A dirty, thick red. Before Even can move to stop him, Isak clenches his hand around the fragment into a fist and starts to turn around, and Even feels his own lungs pull back from his chest, can _hear_ the edges cut into Isak’s flesh, how each hard line cuts into the softness of his palm, drawing blood and muscle but also something deeper-

And then he wakes up.

-

Even waits for Isak on Tuesday after his last class, fingers tapping listlessly over his thigh. He doesn't get to see Isak at school that much – mostly just between classes, sometimes, waiting for him by his locker in the hallway like today, or skipping English to watch Isak in the gymnasium when he doesn’t feel like conjugating tenses. It’s much more interesting to watch Isak’s ass from afar. Still better when it’s right in front of him.

His phone chirps. He pulls it out of his pocket.

 

_Going to stay until 15.30 for chem help._

_Meeting Tom, you don’t have to wait_

 

Why wouldn’t I <3

 

<3

And now his nerdy, nicely-assed boyfriend is staying late to ask one of his classmates for chemistry help. Even’s _tried_ helping him with chemistry before, because he’s good at it, and he knows he’s good at it, but it’s just – it’s explaining the concepts that are hard: he draws mechanisms too fast, excited and overly detailed, usually with an interesting but ultimately unhelpful history fact thrown in, and Isak - ever the analyzer - always makes him go back three steps to explain one arrow and then Even just gets frustrated. He’d rather have Isak learn from someone else; someone better than him. Someone who could tame all that chemic chaos into structure, who could actually help Isak do well. Not Even. Maybe for other things, but not for this.

 _No, for other things, too,_ part of his brain tells him as he slides his phone back into his pocket. He presses the heel of his palm against Isak’s locker, lightly. It’s been almost four months but he still can’t get that sticky place in his head to be any less cynical. Even tries to ignore it, walks away from the lockers and down the empty hall, trailing his fingers across the whitewashed brick. Stops at a corner next to a window and doodles a picture of a little black cloud in pencil over paint seam, before smearing it away with the pad of his thumb.

There was more glass at Elvebakken, he remembers. More glass and more light, and walls that looked like they could change with the weather: a hard grey in the rain and then beige again in the sun. He liked staying after to film things on his phone, hearing his sneakers squeak against the floor and the dissipating sound as it echoed down the empty hallways. It’s nice, too, at Nissen, but it’s different. He didn’t have two years here, didn’t have all his friends from Bjølsen or the closeness to his home or the tiny sandwich place in between. Mediocre sandwiches at best, but it was hard to notice how bad they were when he was always laughing with his friends. He missed them, but no one had to know. The sandwiches.

Three months, and then he’d have to figure out what to do with his life. Maybe he could work for a while after graduation– learn how to make better coffee, see if he could find any shifts at KB; could move out with Isak and start writing a screenplay that neo-noir romance he’d always wanted to direct. Three months, and he could finally graduate. He could finally be himself, untangled from the mess of school and grades and constant reminders of just how awfully he had messed those up. But then what would he have?

Even stops when he realizes he’s walked a loop through the school, ending back at Isak’s locker. He checks his watch: 15.19. He walks the loop again, pulls out his phone. 15.28.

A classroom door clicks open behind him and Even turns to see Isak walking out with his backpack over one shoulder, still holding his notebook and textbook and pencil case in his hands.

“I still don’t get covalent bonding. You can show me when we eat.”

Even groans, unconsciously, and Isak looks up as he’s shoving everything into his bag and laughs and says, “It’s fine. Just… go slower. And stop crumpling up all the wrong ones, okay? They’re helpful.”

“Sure,” Even says, leaning down to pick up a rogue pen as it rolls out from a notebook spiral. He puts it behind his ear. “I’ll just tape them all over your walls instead.”

“As long as the memes stay.” Isak finishes putting everything away and tilts his head towards the entrance doors. “Food?”

Even nods. “Food.”

They walk out to the courtyard together, and Even pulls the pen out from behind his right ear and sticks it behind Isak’s left. Something small and warm unfolds in his stomach when Isak smiles slightly and pushes himself a closer into Even’s side in response. He likes it.

Even knows this: when he finally leaves everything behind him, he’ll still have Isak.

-

There was a night, once, when Even had almost told him. It wasn’t like it was the best place for it to happen, or the best moment – and nothing had been said to really make him think that the hot, over-packed, slippery club was a deep and meaningful place to talk about his feelings, of all things. But Mahdi had dragged them all out into the student quarter after a late dinner in the humid, humid night, and was now nowhere to be found in the crowd; and Even was feeling a good, warm drunk from his three beers and the heat from all the bodies around him, his white t-shirt sticking slightly to his skin, constantly running his hand through his hair, pushing rogue strands away from his forehead.

Then there was Isak in front of him, against him, legs spread around one of Even’s and pressing close to his body, grinding down onto Even’s thigh, slowly, as well as he can to the music -- something vaguely house-y and pulsing but making everything feel as if it were moving, strangely, in slow motion – Isak’s cheekbones catching the overhead lights as they poured, violet and thick, over the crowd. Even rocks up into the heat between Isak’s legs, meeting each of his deliberate movements, and feels the half-hard press of his cock through his jeans; places his hands on both sides of his face, gently, and pulls him in close, kisses down his face and then hard into his mouth until his lips ache. Sees how Isak’s eyes bloom in the dark, how his teeth flash, softly, as he laughs and the sound catches halfway in the loudness of the air.

It was too much and not enough. He couldn’t be this euphoric without feeling something start to press against the skin inside him, something that always reminded him quietly, rudely, of his own body and of himself and of all the things he wanted, badly, but was afraid to have. An unexpected intimacy under the neon lights that shifting into a kind of fear in his stomach, low and familiar, like an old bruise. He loved it and hated it, but right now it was making him burn. 

So he does the first thing that comes to his mind and grabs Isak by the wrist, turns around and makes their way through the crowd to the bathrooms in the basement. Locks the main door and pushes Isak into a stall, unzipping him and getting straight to blowing him against the graffitied wall, Isak’s hair throwing shadows across tiny sharpie drawings, lyrics, love notes, with each time he throws his head back and bares his neck and cries out until he can’t. Even is hard then, too, from the wetness Isak’s cock leaves down his throat, against his lips; he takes one of Isak’s hands out from where they were tangled into Even’s hair, pulls it down to his mouth to kiss the inside of his wrist. Isak looks down on him with something in his eyes that Even can’t name, something dark and warm and devoted that makes the air ache in his stomach and -- he really, _really_ needs to come.

When he stands up from the floor he feels Isak hold on to his waist, pushing him hard against the door of the stall, opening his jeans and shoving them down and wrapping his hand around both their cocks as Even starts to moan, ragged and breathy, until they’re both spent. Isak, again. Even can feel the shape of his lips when he giggles, quietly, into his chest, as he grabs some toilet paper from the dingy silver dispenser and cleans them both up. He exhales and moves to sit on the toilet, pulling his jeans and underwear back on and motions for Isak to come sit.

“Again?” Isak asks, quirking an eyebrow. He looks flushed, panting slightly as he zips his pants and smooths down the fronts with his hands, and Even can see that he’s tired, but happy and sated.

“No, I just – come here,” he says, and Isak obliges, sits down softly in his lap, facing Even, and moves his legs around Even’s waist. Even pulls him in closer and kisses his nose, then his mouth, pausing in between, both their lips still a little wet and swollen from before. In the moment, Isak seems to understand what he wants; he wraps his arms around Even’s neck, then shifts and moves them down to his waist, touching his forehead to Even’s chest. In the moment, Isak is a warm, comfortable weight surrounding him and Even needs him, need this, and he doesn’t really understand why. Or – he doesn’t want to, really. Doesn’t want to pick it apart.

They sit together like that for a while. He can hear the music as it pounds in the distance, bass notes vibrating through the metal of the stalls and into the floor like a muted echo of Isak’s pulse, humming to Even as their chests touch. When he looks up, he watches the lights as they flicker and dim against the dark paint of the walls, the ceiling.

Isak shifts his forehead against his chest and kisses his collarbone. Even tightens his arms around Isak’s shoulders, closes his eyes again and feels a twist behind his lungs, a closed-off sensation at at odds with how exposed he feels. But he knows himself better, knows how (some) of his defenses still stand, knows he can still hold back his rawness before it spills over, seeps into what he doesn’t want it to touch. It’s been so long, though. It’s been _so_ long, and this is Isak. And how _badly_ he wants to --

 _Not now_ , Even thinks, running his index finger up and down Isak’s spine, lightly. It catches occasionally on the back of his t-shirt, damp from sweat. Even spreads his fingers and presses his palm flat between Isak’s shoulder blades, pressing him closer. Kisses into his hair. _I won’t take this from him. Not right now._

The club pounds above them and Even hears the music, the crowd, the occasional jolt of laughter wrapped in a thick hum that swells and recedes, rushing half-muted through the walls. And still -- under all that distant noise, in this moment with Isak in his arms -- he can’t help but feel everything again in slow motion, as if he’s dreaming. As if through water.

-

Another night and an uninvited memory: _a skip back, a video error - the bathroom door thrown open and slammed against the wall and Even, silent and still on the floor, cradling his left arm in his lap, his jeans slightly tacky with blood._

It’s hard not to remember, but also – it’s not as if he really tries to forget.

-

And sometimes he wonders -- who was he before Isak?

He remembers nights alone in his room, sprawled on the sofa under his bed & half-heartedly sexting Sonja while eating from a bag of crisps. His laptop screen on in front of him and its static-y white glow falling across his face, softly. Other nights, too, when he would wake up at 4am for no apparent reason, his internal clock calling out to something he couldn’t understand; would step silently to the kitchen, opening the fridge to eat a slice of cold bread. Barefoot on the tiled floor, looking out past the sink window, the glass, the trees, to the heavy, hot night of the city outside. Light pollution and the strange, suspended stillness of humidity. He felt like something else, something bigger, was holding its breath in the night along with him.

That’s who he must have been, he thinks. Or, _what_ he was. Air pressed into the shape of a body, waiting to turn into rain.

- 

His parents are away in Bergen for the weekend and he’s left all the windows open in the apartment, all the room doors thrown wide for the spring air to blow through; called Isak to come over and to bring the rest of the six-pack he’d left in their refrigerator. It’s pouring outside, but he’s not worried about anything getting wet -- not when he thinks of how badly he wants to feel the storm on his skin and in his hair, how he wants to feel it with Isak, in him, together.

And, fuck. He has Isak underneath him now, soft and wet, the two of them naked and on his mattress he’d dragged to his bedroom floor under the open window. Isak’s face is still a little damp from running through the rain. Next to them, the bottle of lube trembles gently against the floor. Even leans down and kisses his temples as he starts to push in, and Isak lets out a light moan, fingers gripping into Even’s forearms and then sliding up to his biceps as tries to chase Even’s mouth with his own.

“Isak?” Even says, quietly, stilling. Isak’s eyes are shut, his lower lip bitten between his teeth, and Even can’t help but feel a pang of guilt at the sight, even though he’d already fingered Isak until he was on the verge of tears (within an inch of his life, Isak had said), held his hips down and his thighs apart, slick and pink and wet; Even knows it still hurts when they start.

“Isak, baby,” he says again, quieter this time. “Are you okay?” He brushes his nose lightly, lightly against Isak’s, shifts down to his elbows to cup Isak’s face in his hands. It pushes him in a little deeper, but Isak loosens his grip on Even’s arms as he moans again, softly, and opens his eyes. He swallows, letting his lip out from his teeth, and nods, and Even starts to move.

He can hear his own breaths against the sounds of the storm outside, low and ragged over the constant wash of rain, echoing oddly against the walls of his room as his window rattles slightly, half-open to the air. He’s still going slowly at first, pressing kisses to the corners of Isak’s mouth, his nose, his eyelids.

“You can go faster,” Isak says, pushing lightly against Even’s shoulder. Even watches him as he licks his lips and then pulls back, almost all the way out, adjusts Isak’s legs around his waist until he can hook his knees over his shoulders, and then presses in again, hard, making him shudder. He fucks him fast, changing his angle slightly until Isak starts moaning with intent, fisting his hands into the sheets, then the pillows, then into Even’s hair, looking for purchase.

He’ll never get over the feeling of being inside Isak, of pressing his body into the wet heat between his legs, watching Isak’s face as his mouth falls open, slick and bitten and red, and he looks Even in the eye and just looks and looks and looks. Isak is beautiful like this, he thinks. In the downy-grey light of the storm through the window, the shadows of rain trails slipping across Isak’s face, his chest, the bared slopes of his neck as he breathes – he’s beautiful. Even doesn’t have the words to say more. He doesn’t want to find the words. He doesn’t want to share.

“You’re mine, Isak.” Even doesn’t realize he’s said it until he sees Isak’s eye widen a little, feels his hand press gently into the curve of his neck and shoulder, warm against the cool air of the room, as if in acknowledgement. A blessing. Even tilts his head to kiss the inside of his wrist, locks their eyes and whispers, low: “Listen. You’re mine. I love you and you’re mine.”

It’s not the first time he’s said it to Isak, but it is the first time he’s said it _inside_ Isak, and he feels the effect of his words, how Isak shudders underneath him and clenches, hot and sudden, around his cock; how he drags his nails down the lines of Even’s shoulder blades and the only sounds falling out of his throat are caught in the shape of _Even, Even, Even._

So Even drives in his hips in deeper and quicker, over and over and over again into Isak’s tiny, tight body, making him throw his head back and cry out, baring his neck, his voice breaking a little with each time Even’s thrusts hit his prostate. It’s not enough, though. Even needs more. 

“Turn over, baby.”  

Isak whines in complaint but complies, pulls himself off Even’s cock and rolls onto his hands and knees and waits. Even moves behind him, runs his hand down the knobs of Isak’s spine before using one hand to hold him in place and the other to guide himself back in to Isak’s hole, pink and wet. Isak pushes his face, tear-streaked, into the pillow and moans, loudening in volume as Even starts to bottom out. His hands clench into the sheets by his face. 

“Jesus, Even, fuck. Please. Holy fuck.” 

Even obliges. He leans over Isak, making him drop his shoulders down and raise his hips up, and presses in as deep and as far as he can, his body throbbing with Isak’s warmth. Then he pulls back and slams in, making a cry choke out from Isak’s throat and then again and again as Even keeps going, hard, giving him everything he has. He puts his hands over Isak’s, lacing their fingers together, out from the sheets.  

Isak comes hard and sudden and Even moves to wrap his hand around Isak’s cock, thumbing his slit as he comes and comes and comes, white and thick over Even’s sheets, some catching on his own belly. Even works him through his orgasm with one hand as he keeps fucking into him, forcing sobs out from Isak’s throat, his other hand moving to press between Isak’s lips, feeling drool slide down his palm, a warm, wet line down the inside of his arm that catches in the chill air of the rain. When Isak cries out around his fingers again, he thinks he hears his name. He thinks he hears a prayer. He doesn’t stop. 

“Oh god, oh god, Even, fuck—”

Even threads one hand into his hair and pulls him back to kiss him, swallowing the soft, wounded sounds Isak is making, and it feels so, so _good_ , and he’s lightheaded, Isak still clenching around him, crying out his name between profanities and moans; and then Isak does that thing that makes Even go wild – spreads his knees a little and pushes himself back against Even’s cock, lifting his ass up as he does, forcing Even in so, _so_ fucking deep – and Even thrusts in hard, once, twice, and then comes with a sob dragged out from inside, biting down into Isak’s shoulder as his vision goes white and harsh and he can’t feel his own lungs. He feels shattered; he knows he is.

Slowly, Even starts to pull out as his nerves calm their buzzing and then stills, takes a moment to find each part of himself again, drawing a moan from Isak when Even’s cock slips out of his hole with a slick, wet sound. Isak is limp underneath him, still on his knees with half his face pressed into the the crease between their two pillows, shoulder blades falling and rising as his breathing slows. Even watches as he blinks lethargically, lashes fanning over the pink flush smeared across his cheeks, and asks “Baby – are you okay? Issy? Was that good?”

Isak moves, finally, to lay on his right side, his back curved toward Even. He nods, whispers, “Yeah. It was good.” His voice is throaty, eyes a bit glassy, and as he reaches back and to touch Even’s wrist, his fingers graze against the raised ridges and lines underneath, and for an awful moment -- Even freezes.

He regrets his pause immediately but he knows it couldn’t have been helped -- it was an anxious reflex, a second of vulnerability, and god, how he was raw right now. He knows Isak notices; Even looks up from where they’re touching and gazes warily at him, still unmoving. For a second Isak doesn’t do anything but hold his gaze, unreadable; but then he’s tugging at Even’s hand, drawing it over his hip and onto his own belly where Even can feel the aftershocks of Isak’s orgasm: muscles still trembling minutely under his fingers, Isak’s come starting to cool as it slides down his skin to the bed. “Hey. It was really fucking good.”

Even blinks, then leans down to kiss him on his temple, gently pushing some of Isak’s hair away with his free hand, a few strands matted down to his skin. When he sits back up he can still taste the salt of Isak’s sweat on his lips. He pulls his hand away from where it was resting on his boyfriend’s belly.

“I’ll be right back.”

Isak folds his arms to his chest and smiles at him, sleepily. Even can’t help but go in for a kiss again, this time from cheek to shoulder. And in his head, on loop: _don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t think-_

The hallway is noticeably colder than his bedroom, where they had fucked with the door closed because Even liked the idea of their sex being delineated, a little. He knew it sounded silly, but it was comforting to think that against the sound of the storm outside, against the spring air blowing into the room – it was still just Isak and him, together, with no empty spaces left to fill. 

It also helped with the echo. Isak had been... loud.

He walks to the bathroom and grabs a soft blue towel, wets it under the sink with warm water, then rummages around the drawers until he finds a clean cup. As he waits for the tap to run cold, Even looks up and into the mirror, sees himself with half his fringe swept across his forehead, half sticking up from when he kept running his fingers through it. Watches as the blush recedes slowly from his collarbones and notices his bottom lip is a little bloody. He vaguely remembers Isak biting it while Even fingered him. He licks at it and feels it sting a little, but doesn’t wipe the red away.

Back in the bedroom, Even gently sets the glass down on the floor next to the mattress, by the edge near Isak’s head. Isak looks like he might have fallen asleep, doesn’t seem like he’s moved at all, still curled into his side; and as Even moves to clean him up he sees a sheen of wetness on the underside of Isak’s thighs and ass, from where he had let Even’s come leak out of him. Even wonders what it must feel like, if there’s any left inside – but then he remembers the weight of the towel in his hand and pats it gently, gently against Isak’s skin and his stomach.

Even hears him sigh, sleepily, and it cuts at something inside him, something that this goddamn soft, beautiful boy had torn into, like a blind bullet.

He wipes himself off next, then throws the washcloth off into the corner before reaching down to draw up the blankets strewn at the foot of the mattress. But the room is still a little hot and Even likes how it feels when the cool air from outside finds his skin through the open windows on the wall above them, so he leaves the sheets off to the side again and lays back down. He’ll pull them up if Isak gets cold, would wrap everything around him a thousand times to keep him safe if he could. And Even knows _he_ isn’t one for safety, knows that when he slips down the cliffs inside him Isak will fall too, and maybe even willingly, and Even won’t be able to stop him, but -- he thinks, in this moment, he could be good. He could try to be good. He’ll let himself have this fragment of selfishness. Just this once.

Outside, a low roll of thunder shudders in the distance. There’s a faint scent of petrichor in the air. Even curves his body into a comma around Isak’s, noses into the strands of hair at the nape of his neck and winds their fingers together; tries to sleep. Closes his eyes and breathes and breathes and breathes. 

-

He wakes up at some odd time in the night, caught in the margins of a dream already burning away at the edges; he tries to remember it but knows it’s hopeless now, feels too much like catching smoke in his hands. Next to him, Isak breathes slow and steady in his sleep, and Even listens for a minute before rolling over to check the time on his phone. The sudden brightness of his screen hurts his eyes, reflects a little off the wood of the floor. kl 5.01. Fuck. Fuck it.

At this point he knows he won’t be able to fall back asleep -- he can already feel his muscles tightening, the teeth in his mind starting to slide into place. Even locks his phone and absentmindedly taps it against his chin; steps up from the mattress, gently, and puts some clothes on, goes up the building stairs and onto the rooftop, leaving his door unlocked. It’s still dark outside, and chilly. He should have brought a blanket.

The rain had stopped sometime in the night and there are puddles everywhere on the ground, flat reflections of the twilight rippling occasionally in the wind. Even walks closer to the edge of the building and leans his elbows against the ledge, looking out over Oslo, dusky and violet and still asleep in the distance.

He feels his bottom lip sting when the wind swells, and he licks at it, makes it burn slightly more; he remembers the sex from last night, the intimacy, how this time it was hot and fierce and other times they would laugh and one time Even had cried, but it was always -- so much. It was always so much, and it was scary, and sometimes he wasn’t sure how much more he could offer without unraveling completely. Like how badly he wanted to claw himself open and let Isak inside, to show him every single cell that his life was stitched together with, and say: this is what I have. Please take it and tear it apart.

But he knew he couldn’t. He knew it was stupid, was inevitably dangerous, and that Isak, in love as he may be -- even Isak had his limits. And Even knew that _he_ would get hurt, too. A foreign body made fearful in Even’s own. It could kill him. It _would_ kill him.

No -- that wasn’t fair. Isak had known what he was getting into, had known the messy, hopeless chaos that Even could be – but, wait, no that also wasn’t fair, because Isak didn’t know all of it. Even knew Isak had seen his arms before, but never said anything, not out of any awkwardness or discomfort (that much he knew for sure) but more because of some ridiculous, saint-like patience towards him that Isak possessed.

Like how once, they had been cutting fruit in the kitchen together and Even had mindlessly reached an across him to rinse a bowl of berries under the sink, and Isak, somehow, had chosen that moment to look away from where he was making puppy-eyes at Even’s face, down to the counter where he was supposed to be cutting an apple. To where Even’s forearm was stretched across his chest. For a minute, the only sound in the room was the running of the tap and Even couldn’t look at him, felt his face warming with a slowly rising panic--

“Wow, Even. Your parents never taught you personal space, did they?” Isak asked. Even had turned off the water and leaned back, looked at him. Calmly picked a blueberry from the bowl and tossed it at his nose.

Still, now, that Isak-shaped entrance wound around his entire body – it would start to hurt soon, and Even knew he would have to face it. He couldn’t go on suffocating like this.

The rooftop door clangs open and he turns to see Isak hobble up the stairs, a red blanket wrapped around him, in one of Even’s rumpled jackets and a pair of jeans. Isak squints against the rising light in the horizon and walks over next to him, opens the blanket and drapes half of it around his shoulders. Even takes the corner given to him and pushes his nose into it. It’s warm. It smells like Isak.

“Hi,” Isak says, face close. “I was cold.”

“Hi,” Even says back. “I’m sorry.”

Isak shoots him a look, but says nothing. For a while it’s quiet, and Even leans into him, rests his head on Isak’s shoulder.

Oslo fades to a dark blue in front of them, a reverse gradient, blinking gently as the city lights turn on. Even’s hair ruffles a little as the wind picks up; he feels Isak’s do the same, tickling against his cheek. It feels nice, the air no longer heavy with held rain. There’s a whistling sound underneath them and Even looks down to see someone riding their bicycle down the empty street. Stands up, sits back down, her hair flowing down her back, singing something light under her breath just loud enough for them to hear.

Suddenly, he realizes how tired he is. He tugs at the blanket and Isak looks up from the street to his face, then follows as Even turns around to sit on the cement, shifting his shoulders until his back is pressed against the ledge. He’s exhausted, bone-deep, but he also feels more awake than he has in a long time, his senses taking in everything around him: from the morning chill to the distant hush of cars on the freeway to the damp ground beneath; Isak’s soft warmth against his body, and how Even can see tiny pillow creases on his cheek in the periphery of his vision; how each part of his body feels like its own articulated bruise -- but this time not from disquiet. This time, Even thinks, it’s from what he wants to say. A collection of aches straining under his skin from the inside. And even with this understanding, he can’t help but wonder with an unexpected pang of shame: _without this, who would I be?_

Because, the thing is: he’s never really wanted anyone to know.

“Can you tell me?” Isak asks, his voice slipping into the silence. Even bites his lip.

Next to him, Isak pulls in his knees and traces his left index finger against a crack in the cement.

“Only if you want to,” Even hears him say. He’s looking at Even now, and Even’s finally looking at him, memorizing his face in the shadow from the ledge above them. The wind picks up again and makes Isak’s jacket collar tap lightly against his sternum under the blanket, a cut of blue against skin.

“Really. You don’t have to. Doesn’t have to be now, or anything. I mean, I want to know… but. Only if _you_ want me to.”

Even lets out a breath and closes his eyes, taps the back of his head against the brick against their backs. The sun is up in full now, and it leaks under his lashes.

_Only if you want to. Only if you want me to._

He opens his eyes.

The thing is: now he does.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! i was really nervous posting this since it took me so long to write ... but i hope you enjoyed it <3
> 
> [this is the last time - the national](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKn0gbPScuo)   
>  [Страсть к Курению - Буерак](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxLYYf5bz0M)   
>  [procession - new order](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95H1vtE9JjU)   
>  [iconography - andré bratten](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2Kgk1PooNM)   
>  [says - nils frahm](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIwwjy4slI8)
> 
> the club they're at probably has something [like this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EfxIM8ZnTk&t=119s) playing in the background; inspired by [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bugpb1_Vqrw) from _j'ai tué ma mère_

**Author's Note:**

> ETA: thank you so much for the kudos & comments -- i really, really, truly appreciate them and i try to respond to as many of the comments as i can (but i've been slacking as of late because of personal reasons). thank you all, again, for being so wonderful and for taking the time to read this. ♡
> 
> please also take the time to watch [this absolutely stunning video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EU97F_RIz8g) by agnecee on youtube (they said it was inspired by this fic!) -- it's breathtaking in every aspect, in each frame and every moment of music, and i'm so, so grateful that it exists. 
> 
> [writing/personal](http://warwisher.tumblr.com) & [tumblr](http://rosesonmyshelf.tumblr.com/)


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